Automakers Claim New Fuel Standards Will Cost Jobs
Automakers had until July 1st to plead their case to the NHTSA overlords before the government agency set off to finalize the 2011-2015 CAFE standards. After hearing comments from Detroit automakers, Toyota, Daimler, and others, it seems that the new standards are going to have a sweeping effect on both consumers and auto industry employees. The Auto Alliance states that the cuts would hasten the exit of 82,000 jobs, cost $29 billion for consumers, and raise the cost of your favorite truck by $4,000 or more. The added cost of vehicles will also cut annual production by up to 850k units industry-wide.
Buy that? Me neither. Especially since the Bush administration has hidden the benefits of emission regulations, saving the country $2 TRILLION.
Of course, we could go the automakers' way...keep producing an inefficient engine requiring a diminishing resource for fuel and allow other countries to continue to beat us in technology and sales.
Let's just save Japanese jobs.
I can only think of the 7 words you can't say on television...all of them are repeating over and over in my head...F*#$!
the old standards cost a lot of jobs.
Newsflash to Detroit: the inability for US Automakers to compete in a world economy will cost jobs. Lots more jobs...
Yeah, will lose billions. And I'm a virgin!
US car makers; as innovative and flexible as Lada in 1982.
P.D. @ 5:
heeeeeeyyyyyyyyyy, howwww yuu dooooooin ?
Seems to me that the old fuel standards are costing them A LOT of jobs right now...
When are they going to get it? November 5th, Doubt it!
What is costing jobs was the shortsighted concentration on producing gas-guzzling road hog SUVs instead of developing sensible, low priced fuel economy, hybrid and electric cars for what was easy to see coming down the road. The CEOs focused on short term gains for their shareholders and ignored the inevitable future. Just try and sell your used SUV now for peanuts, it ain't gonna happen. What the hell were the Big Three's risk management and development teams doing all these years?
Now's the time to get your 6000 SUX!
I say if the US EPA would simply enforce their own mandate “to protect the environment from pollution, etc., and immediately call all motor vehicles in for emissions tests - millions of cars, trucks, and SUVs would be off the road over night until they could finally re-test and pass the emissions standard. This would relieve both the supply and demand sides of the gasoline crunch; driving up the supply and driving down the demand. This simple solution would make the price drop significantly and quickly.
I would also recommend that the government then offer those who cannot pass the current standard for emissions a tax break and a voucher for a down payment on a newer, more gas efficient car or truck that also passes the emissions standard while it reduces demand and increases supply here in the USA.
any goddamn excuse.
New fuel standards will decrease jobs because now, people will no longer have to work two. Putz.
mudshark @ 7:
PD, i have it on good authority Mudshark was a virgin once. :)
mudshark @ 7:
ROFL!!!
Seriously though, I really don't get the logic...improving fuel economy means thousands of lost jobs, hundreds of thousands less vehicles produced and millions of dollars of lost revenue for auto-makers. WTF??? These automakers are either WAY in bed with BIG OIL or I just don't get it!
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
But then they kill you anyway..
GM's the worst, still producing a V8 introduced in 1955. It's this mindset, to wring out of the tooling the last nickel, and marketing from the railroad age that's held the Detroiters back. As long as they got their bonuses and went home to Bloomfield Hills and Pleasant Ridge, they were untouchable. Those days are gone. They earned their just rewards.
then how do they explain the past, and very recent past, loss of jobs, the closures, the increase in the price of vehicles every year?
RalphB. @ 16:
There is no logic to this. It's all fear mongering. Just the same old, same old.
The corporate bastards ALWAYS say, in their first breath. It does not matter what industry. When faced with any kind of new higher standard and/or regulation, they play the jobs threat card, and right behind it, comes the increased costs to consumers scare. Lying pricks. Why do they not try coming up with something original? Simple answer really; scare marketing works so well. When pressed to specify WHY the jobs/cost impact, they shut up faster than an anus seizure in the Arctic. If they had been working on this a little at a time over the years, they could have already been at, or near compliance. Instead, they have done zilch, except pocket bigger profits. The Japanese are always working to improve their technology, especially in core systems. Detroit mainly focuses on gadgets, advertising and styling. That is a big reason why they are always getting their asses kicked.
Enact tough CAFE standards and save the American car companies from themselves. Hey you dopes, cars that get good mileage are going to sell better than cars that don't because gas prices are really high. Further, everytime we buy a gas guzzling car we have to buy oil from a part of the world that is far too influential. By the way, have you checked, a lot of people have lost their jobs in the industry without the CAFE standards; the jobs were lost because you dopy American companies want to build trucks when gas is $5.00 a gallon.
Cocao growers claim 'War on Drugs' will cost jobs!
St00pit frakkin argument.
(o0)
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I find it mildly humorous that Ford, GM and even Toyota all posted losses this quarter. Honda (the only company that seems to be pushing for higher MPG standards) was the only one to post a gain (albeit a piddly 1%, but a gain nonetheless!) This should be a sign to the car-makers. Think they'll catch it? Me neither.
We should have been investing in solar, and wind years ago. The Europeans and others are kicking our asses. Thanks to the religious right we are behind 20 years. So much for Christian Conservatism!
Spunkmeyer @ 4:
Exactly!!
I just put my name on a reserve list for a Smart Car! Cause Detroit sure isn't producing what I want?
Now why is it cars like the Prius and the Smart Car have long waits for delivery??? Demand, or something like that???
"...and raise the cost of your favorite truck by $4,000 or more"
you just don't get it do you detroit? if the truck doesn't get the mpg i demand it's not my favorite truck any more.
keep thinking like that and your company deserves to fail.
Someone please explain to me why it seems to be so difficult in getting American car manufacturers to get with the program? Any program that is, that allows better mileage through advances in technology. Are we Americans really that brain dead that we can't find solutions to these problems?
Not more than two weeks ago a Japanese firm introduced the worlds first water powered car. It can run on fresh water or salt water and there's plenty of that around. One quart of water gets you 80 miles. Many would argue that the oil cartel is just too powerful and surpresses any advances that are capable of stretching a gallon of gas. That in fact their buddies at the car manufacturers are in bed with the oil companies as well as government because after all it might be really hard to tax water as a fuel and look at all that lost revenue.
What ever the reason, this crap has gone on long enough. If the good folks from the land of sushi can find a way to power a car successfully, then there shouldn't be any reason on Gods still green earth that we can't and in doing so open up new green industires while rebuilding our manufacturing base.
Take a gander at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWFbYz2zwRo
Andrew @ 28:
Please stop it..
There is no energy in water.
Cars can't run on water.
This comes up in C/L now every week, and is just as crappy science as Bush science.
What they're saying is: we, as American car manufacturers are so badly run, that there is no way we can possibly reach those standards, but we're sure that all of our big competitors will. So, please don't make us run our companies better and compete. We can't.
On the merits of the argument, it makes absolutely no sense to me at all. What are they worried about? People will still buy cars, they'll just have to build them to spec.
Andrew at 28: PLEASE STOP PUSHING HOAXES. "Running on water" is BS and its a very well debunked hoax. C&L did a disservice to the internet by posting that report. Go back to that post and read the comments if you want to know why it's BS.
That's hilarious and a bit schizoid. A chunk of the trouble on Wall Street turns on the way Big Auto is bleeding money from an utter plummet in Bloat Mobile sales. Toyota's main problem is they can't make enough Priuses and so on to keep up with demand and sales of Vespa Scooters are going through the roof.
Big Auto has become a diplodocus where the head brain doesn't know what the tail brain is up to.
RalphB. @ 24:
Honda's gain would have been bigger, but they've sold all their civics and there is almost none available. Gee, that's what happens when you build a car people want. LOL @ Detroit.
Boo-frickin-hoo! The auto companies have had years to develop the cars we need and what do they come up with?
There answer is the 2009 Canyonero!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoPon3xuCjEe
Where is the EV1 now?
GM and Ford've been pulling this poor-mouth Sh*t so long that no one should pay attention to it anymore. Are they really gonna stop selling their crappy cars if the standards don't lighten up? Or have even the Stu Pids of the nation finally figured out "big truck go Vroom no good wallet thin now?" Their products have sucked in multiple languages for 3 decades - anybody else have a Vega with the incredible disappearing/disintegrating rear hatch like we had? I got so sick of the spare tire compartment filling up with rainwater that I drilled holes in the tailpan to get the water to drain. Crappy cars. Intransigent, entrenched, old-school management. Union locals which spend too much time saving the jobs of people who are bent on self destruction. No way to really innovate. If they won't kick themselves in the *ss to get their act together then somebody has to do it. And if they won't figure out fuel economy, maybe they should go the way of the Studebaker.
Why does it cost that much to upgrade, but not to give away?
Complete BS from automakers. They have the engines to retrofit into existing vehichles to reach higher CAFE standards. They've just become addicted to massive profits selling monster SUVs. It's sad that working folks have to deal with the fallout because of these assholes in management. It's so fucking simple to reset an existing computer in your current car to get better gas mileage or simply buy a new chip with programming already done.
Cas @ 29:
I guess seeing is believing. The water is broken down into hydrogen and that's what the engine burns cleanly. They discovered a way in using and electrolitic process that can create all of the energy the car requires. By the way, people never thought that man could fly, or create the seam engine or build bridges. If mankind were to never advance or push themselves to take advantage of creating new industry, then he might as well roll over and play dead. Never say never as I'd like to believe that mankind will eventually understand that in order to survive, technological evolution is change. If the Japanese can do it so could we or any other country for that matter.
My dad used to relate the story of how years ago, our city had a perfectly good electric streetcar system that ran downtown for practically free and the oil companies paid the city to dismantle it under the excuse that it was getting too old . The tracks were paved over and people were encouraged to drive downtown.
So how hard is it to believe that the oil barons are leaning on the automotive industry to keep producing shitty, gas-guzzling cars and trucks. It's worth it to them to underwrite their loses behind the scenes .
The hubris of "Detroit" knows no bounds. I guess citizens are not the only ones who have failed to heed the lessons of the 1970s. I swear, neocons will come up with scary reasons not to do anything.
Speaking of lessons, Allow me to use this space to gripe about my fellow locals here in socal. With gas nearing $6/gal, you'd think people would lay off the accelerator. No dice. Roads still overrun with hyper-competetive morons drag racing from stoplight to stoplight, and becoming visibly agitated whenever they get behind someone who paces themselves to save gas at virtually zero time cost.
Translation:
The automakers will use the new emission standards as a smokescreen to export even more jobs to Mexico.
looks to me like 4.00 a gal gas and cars that get 16 miles per gal will slow down sales and hurt business more then raising fuel mileage.
They may have some experience in this arena
Detroit could be wiped off the face of the planet? Sign me up for that. Seriously, when my 1967 Impala gets better mileage than a 2007 Impala, you know automakers aren't even trying to make their vehicles more efficient.
Also FWD does not go on an Impala. Fuck that. I'd rather drive my Geo Prizm.
those CEOs are graduates of the limbaugh dittohead school of business- a guy whose been wrong about everything important but still has the biggest soapbox in the country and every day reminds 20 MIL and the other millions who hear his drivel second hand, that there is no global warming, invest in hummers.
Lies, all lies. Let's take GM for example since they are the largest US automaker. Of its total revenues, GM’s automotive business generated record revenue of $178 billion in 2007, a $7 billion improvement over 2006, on the strength of GM's growth in emerging markets and favorable foreign exchange against a weaker U.S. dollar. We are only talking about the GM's auto division, but it is important to note that GMAC, their mortgage division, has been taking major hits as a result of the housing and subprime lending crisis in the U.S. As far as the auto division is concerned, it seems they could meet CAFE standards while also maintain the jobs and all.
It is time to declare war on the energy industry and its coporate conglomerates. Consumer power can be the strongest force in this nation if consumers can unite. It is a big IF, but a necessary IF.
Here is a short history of CAFE standards:
The CAFE standard in 1978 required auto companies was only 18 miles per gallon. The Carter Administration called for the fuel efficiency standards be raised to 48 mpg by 1995. At the time, the auto industry touted that it could even reach 30 mpg by 1985. However, the Reagan Administration withdrew the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) notice just three months after it was issued. After the original Congressional mandate of 27.5 mpg took effect in 1985, the Reagan Administration rolled the standard back to 26 mpg in 1986. Finally in 1989 the first Bush Administration moved the standard back to the 1985 level of 27.5 mpg. Clinton did nothing to improve CAFE standards either.
I wish GM had actually kept its word about Saturn. About keeping Spring Hill open and quirky and turning out cars people could afford without all the bloat which happened to most GM models and is a staple at Dodge.
I wish GM didn't think we were so stupid as to think an Opel would pass as an American design. Or that 'Rethink American' meant 'take us at our word, this Opel is an American car.'
I wish GM would clean house and get some true talent in its management.
As I've said before, automakers put all the technological advances of the last 20 years into improving horsepower. Just look at the numbers..........10 years ago, a 350hp engine was virtually unheard of in domestic cars. Now it's not uncommon to see 400, 500, and even 600hp engines. In addition, they started to offer frivolous, unnecessary gadgets that no one really needs, and you start to see why they are in the mess they are today.
If only ONE CEO had the vision, and balls, to focus on fuel efficient, alternative fuel vehicles 10 years ago, that company could have cornered the market. But no...........that would have cost money and they wouldn't have made their EPS number for the next quarter!
What a backwards industry.........slow to change, and always 10 years behind the curve.
Oh, please. How many more people can they lay off? How many more plants can they close? Their mileage is worse than it was thirty years ago. The lay-offs and plant closings are due to the short-sightedness and lack of imagination of management. Better mileage might actually help them sell cars.
Detroit executive mentality. If I build a vehicle…
…and make $2 a pound after costs why would I make a light one.
…that uses hardly any gas what would happen to my energy stocks.
...that lasts more than five years what about my repeat customers.
…without internal combustion motive means I was wrong all along.
… that runs on distilled corn we can make it up in Agribiz stocks.
… that looks imported means I can treat my people accordingly.
Sorry, but those jobs are gone baby gone..... Japan's eating our lunch in the Auto dept for years, and with $5.00/gal gas (It's here, dammit) any one still driving along in a H3 is either a drug dealer or has male performance issues.... Anything that is less dependent on gasoline is going to survive, everything else will sit on the dealers lots, garages and parking lots and RUST....
Peak Oil may not have be a factor in all this, but it might as well be for all parties concerned. The days of the BIG 3 have long passed, better that some new upstart grow and blossom from their decaying corpses
Don't buy a used car unless you factor in the gas needed to fuel it, and ABSOLUTELY do not buy ANY NEW car unless it is a Plug-In Hybrid or Alt-Fuel vehicle (Hydrogen, alcohol,steam,etc)
Evolve or Die.
Fine - Let them continue to build cars that no one can afford to run OR That No One Wants to Buy. This is the secret to running GM. Do they even make ANY CARS IN THE USA?
I think GM owes more money than the company is worth. You can buy a PRIUS that is made in the USA. I would never buy an American car, they are impractical and due to planned obsolescence they don't last. GM deserves everything they get.
The US auto industry has spent it's entire existence paying off politicians to prevent cars from becoming safer, inovative, or fuel efficient. This is par for the course for them. If they go under, so be it.
Whatever... Fuck you lazy Amurkan manufacturing pigs, it's time to invest in a new aptera (as soon as they finish their crash tests, at least)..
A recent poll shows that more Americans now support oil drilling and exploration in place of conservation than did a few short months ago.
Americans are stupid, so I have no doubt that the average American who has been raped by the GOP since Reagan will bend over and drop their drawers even lower to prevent the erosion of jobs due to liberal fuel standards.
Americans deserve this crap for continuing to be blatantly idiotic.
I don't own a truck.
That's the most ridiculous defense of the indefensible I've ever heard.
Just how stupid do they think the American people are? If other countries can do it - and they are - right now - then they can do it. Pretending that producing more fuel-efficient autos will be some gargantuan and insurmountable task is laughable at best.
Of course - if they like the falling sales figures so much - they can go ahead just as they are now. So are they trying to tell us THAT isn't going to cost jobs? ROTFLMAO.
I'll bet they cut thousands of jobs and close dozens of plants before even ONE FAT-CAT CEO take ANY kind of paycut. Assholes.
None of them knows what it is to be a responsible and patriotic American anymore. Money - Egregious Greed - trumps all.
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JHR @ 47:
They're at least 30 years behind the curve. And they intend to keep it that way. I hope they all go bankrupt.
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Anim8rguy @ 54:
Yeah but they need to keep their frickin' fingers off ANWR. I wonder how these same people would feel if they knew the Oil companies were sitting on THIS.
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Andrew @ 37:
Yep. And when you add a condenser to recycle the exhaust it runs forever on the same water right? Gotta love that perpetual motion.
As is the case with anything which is mass-produced, the more you produce, the lower the cost of the end-product. The entire system is currently built on a certain set of rules. And changing those rules will result in a higher cost-per-unit -- but only for a short period of time. Eventually the mass production will ramp up, and the cost-per-unit will fall back down.
What the auto makers are balking at is the cost they are expected to absorb in refitting their assembly lines to comply with the more efficient standards. It seems to me that this refitting will actually create jobs in the long run, not decrease them.
Quite frankly, they need to realize that they are just as responsible for air pollution as, say, a coal burning power plant is. And of course, the electricity companies initially balked at the idea of being made to reduce their emissions. But what is the alternative? Allow them to continue to pollute as much as they want? Surely not.
Cars are no different. A car that gets more miles per gallon will pollute less. And millions of cars that get more miles per gallon will pollute MUCH less.
So I don't care if they p!ss and moan -- let them. They do not have an inherent right to pollute. And sooner or later, they will realize that more efficient cars are actually demanded by the public. Sure, the numbers are not there right now -- because the cost-per-unit is still not as low as it WILL be when they're forced to comply. Once they ramp up the production of the more efficient cars, the costs will come down, and they will have even better sales than they did before.
As appalling as they are, I think we have to understand where the auto makers are coming from. In terms of margins, SUVs a the cash cow of the auto industry. They don't even have to be good SUVs, just big. Its a bit of a sudden shock that a country that has been buying poor quality, over sized, inefficient rubbish now demands the opposite.
Automakers like GM, Fords et all are effectively in a comfort zone. They have a forced choice: Become lean and efficient businesses providing good product consumers want or go the way of the dinosaur. They will, however, fight tooth and nail to resist that change.
GM should have stuck with EV electric car but they got pushed around and probably didn't want to make tooling changes...well the good ole days are over...they could have had 8 plus years into that EV car
When I hear things like this, I can't help but think it's as if the US-based automakers actually WANT to go out of business. Seriously, even in the short term foot-dragging arguments like this are borderline insane. I understand that most big-business CEOs can see about as far ahead as their next bonus, but this is just crazy.
Hell, if I were Ford I'd be pushing for ridiculously high efficiency standards so that the only SUV on the road would be the Escape hybrid. Sure, it'd wreck their F350 Compensator sales, but how well are those selling right now anyway? Oh yeah, sales are down 28%. Oops.
Keep it up, guys--Michigan residents apparently have too many jobs as it is.
I watched "Who killed the Electric Car?". It was highly revealing. One segment focused on the fact that the Detroit car manufacturers count on after-sales parts almost as much if not more than the actual car sale itself. A mechanic pointed out that with an ICE a person would have to buy parts for: the carborator, oil filter, air filter, spark plugs, distributer cap, lubericant for the engine, whereas with an electric car all one has to do is change the battery section. Given that dealers sell spare parts made for the cars they have on their lots, is it any wonder that the auto industry might have a vested interesed in not heavily promoting electric or hybrid vehicles?
This really bothers me. Instead of using innovation and design to get out from under (like Apple Computer did when it was on the ropes) automakers instead whine about how they are threatened by an increase in fuel standards.
Innovation is their only way out. General Motors should already have an ultra fuel efficient vehicle, yet the choose to sink millions in the purchase of automakers like Saab, and Hummer (and cancel their project to create an electric vehicle. It didn't take a crystal ball to see that both were seriously bad moves).
Ford and Chrysler were the same (though Ford at least had the sense to grab up Volvo, a leader in auto-safety technologies).
And there's the issue of CEO pay. You'll notice that no matter how 'threatened' the American automakers (I don't know much about the pay practices of foreign makers, but I suspect that they aren't nearly as generous) are, their CEO's always manage to do very well for themselves.
Why is it that in most any other job, if you don't do particularly well, you generally don't get rewarded for it; yet the auto industry seems to reward behaviors that would be by many considered incompetent?
As much as I am sympathetic toward the workers that put the cars together, I feel the direct opposite for the managers that are running the US auto industry into the ground.
That's right building cars Americans actually want will force the Big Three out of business. It's just common sense!
They have a study that shows it will cost consumers more and cost 82000 jobs? Make them show their work.
isn't it the lack of fuel efficiency that is causing job losses, now?
Automobile technology is well over 100 years old and in that time we have adavanced fuel economy how far? Ford's model T was advertised as getting 21 mpg. The best we can do for a production vehicle today is about 35 MPG. We have some of the most brilliant minds in this country and this is how far we've come in 100 years.
We have all read about the lay people who have somehow modified their cars by themselves in their garage and increased their gas mileage two or three fold. There have been persistant rumors for decades about carburators that get 50-60 mpg from an eight cylinder full size auto. given todays technological advances it is hard to believe that they can't do way better than they do.
The Auto makers have been in collusion with big oil since as far back as awareness of fuel economy and air quality have been issues yet I don't get what's in it for them. I cannot understand why auto companies don't pander to their consumers and give them the high milage vehicles they keep asking for. They would not be able to make them fast enough to keep up with the demand.
If they continue to choose the path of profit first they will eventually pay the price and that is really what the free market is all about.
I haven't bought an American car since 1989. Poor quality, bad gas milage, and not built to last 8 years. Who needs that?
The Big Three are just hastening the day of their own extinction. I'm betting the people at Toyota America are having a good belly laugh at the Big Three's expense.
Hey Chrysler, Ford and GM, I got news for ya. The cost of fuel will never come back down, ever. Build cars that get high MPG or go out of business. What a bunch of fucking retards....
Of course, the construction and maintenance of alternative energy sources cannot create jobs. Nor the fact that getting more miles for the same price will allow people to drive further, increasing wear and tear on their cars so they need a new car sooner. Don't look at the cartel behind the curtain. BEHOLD THE MIGHTY DOLLAR. It's not papier-mâché, really. And that small inscription does not read "made in China".
In the meantime, there is a 6 month waiting list for the Prius. We went to the Toyota dealership just to see one, and they don't even have one on the lot. If you want one, you have to put down your $1000 and wait. They tried to sell us another one that was
"almost" as good.
We will wait.
skycypher @ 12:
Here in Florida we used to have that emissions test. Every year you had to get one. Now Florida is a very windy place, most of our pollution blows elsewhere. So, when the chance came, they got rid of the test over 10 years ago. Result? 2 years later, even in the windy suburbs of Tampa, we were failing EPA air standards. Thanks Jeb.
That's really odd...in every *other* industry, new standards actually create new jobs by creating increased opportunities for creativity and added steps in the production process. I guess the U.S. auto industry is "special."
BC @ 61:
If gas prices go back to, say, just under 3 bux a gallon, they will get that breathing room they need and be shoving mammoth mobiles for another decade, easily. I can't help but wonder about the backroom White House deals being drawn up with the new Iraq oil field coming on-line...
and this is exactly why i have limited sympathies towards the auto industry. they had decades to prepare for this, but refused. and don't discount the failure of the uaw too. it was all short-term gain.
fuck 'em.
It is pretty simple, let the market decide. CAFE standards led to higher death rates on the roads and the rise of the SUV. When the standards for cars got to the point that the station wagon on a car frame was illegal to be made, the auto makers put the station wagon on a truck frame instead of a car frame. Could make them a lot bigger then. But then I wouldn't expect a lot of socialists to understand the free market.
We have over 6.5 billion people on a planet that can sustain 1 or 2 billion. In a world with declining energy the question is not wheter or not we should build new automobiles with higher MPG. The question is whether we should be building new automobiles at all. I would rather eat than drive.
www.dieoff.com
Andrew @ 37:
We had this run around last week and unfortunately crooks and liars never issued some kind of clarification, which in my mind is one of the first times that they really posted something that was totally bogus.
If you want to believe a video of a machine that can power everything using just water, then ask yourself this: do you think that water can boil itself? The energy has to come from somewhere else. If you want to split water and use hydrogen and oxygen as the fuel, then that's fine, that's been done for 130 years and is nothing new. Of course, by the time you split it and put it back together you've wasted about 30% of your energy as waste heat and increased entropy.
C&L, can you PLEASE go back to that previous article and post a retraction? You're doing the work of the anti-science community, by allowing this to stand.
Chris @ 79:
I hope you're just joshin'. Socialists understand one thing for sure: There is no free market.
Let's see now...the auto companies have been fighting CAFE standards for years...as have the unions. Who can feel sorry for them when they've been so stupid for so long? I've been wishing for a pox on both of their houses for years. I guess wishes do come true.
initially, perhaps, just as when robotics was introduced to the assembly line. what did they do? what to do now and in the future? same as has always been done, restructure and retrain.
Soooooo....continuing to produce cars with poor fuel efficiency, which people don't want, will save jobs? How can jobs be "protected" when sales of two automakers are down 25%?
If these idiots want to cut their short term losses, they should buy a bunch of European cars that get 50mpg or better and rebadge them as their own. Oh, wait, how silly of me - US corporations don't want to outsource jobs, do they?
I echo Linda's (#78) sentiments above toward the car makers: fuck 'em.
http://cars.uk.msn.com/greenmotoring/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1379476
The Big Three Idiots of Detroit could buy these econoboxes at cost, ship them over, mark them up 50% on the street price (up to US$35000 for most of them) and make a killing while refitting their own factories in the meantime.
Even if European emission standards were not as tough as the US (CMIIW, but they're stronger), the fuel efficiency of these cars is so ridiculously high (all ten get better than 60mpg) that any restrictions should be waived.
So if I want to buy the gas guzzlers they've been shoving down our throats for years, it's gonna cost me more so I can pay more to fill it up? And if they make more fuel efficient cars, people will buy less?
Maybe someone slipped me a mickey in business class, because I remember business principles differently.
Truth & Beauty
Chris @ 79:
There isn't now, and never has been, a purely "free" market.
But then I wouldn't expect a conservative to understand reality.
Barbara Key @ 74:
Glad I bought my 2008 Prius in February! It's a nice mid-sized car that's getting me 50 mpg. Not the answer to everything, but it's a good start.
Driving the Prius usually results in a changing mindset. You naturally focus more on the mileage than how fast you can go. Which obviously can be done by anyone in any vehicle.
Actually, if all cars had the Prius's real time "yellow bar" display showing instantaneous changes in miles per gallon, I bet the U.S. could reduce fuel consumption by 15-20%. That little yellow bar continually nagging at lead foots would do wonders to get people to back off the accelerator. It's like your Mom constantly scolding you to drive slower and more efficiently. Eventually you just give up driving like a maniac so your Mom will shut up.
That's it! No domestic cars for this guy until the big three shape up!
I was thinkin Ford...but now...not happening. Goin with a foreign hybrid....as soon as I can afford one, lol. I'm a po' boy!
Yep, 'cause things are looking so peachy for the north-American auto industry these days.
My solution to improving MPG and saving automaking jobs:
FIRE THE GD EXECUTIVES!!!!!!!!!!!
They add nothing to the building and cost of the vehicle. The cost savings will be in the billions. So out they go and take away their golden parachutes too. If they are really as smart as they think they are they can find other jobs. Just not in the auto industry. They have already proven themselves failures in that field.
I have a '93 Saturn SL that has been regularly getting me between 39 and 42 mpg about 90% highway driving (I've been keeping track recently), while averaging about 55 mph. Everytime I think about, it drives me insane that, in the past 15 YEARS, the auto companies still haven't improved enough on the internal combustion engine to do better than what I currently get.
Ken
Personally, I find it hard to believe that increasing fuel consumption in vehicles can be so costsly to everyone. Especially since the combustion engine is anceint technology and therefore should be extremely cheap by now to produce. I mean, even the amazing technology of the Ipod is managing to change and/or get cheaper every 3 months....yet car companies would have us believe that updating THEIR hardware would put way too much strain on their company and consumers?
Meanwhile foreign cars continue to become more advanced, MUCH better quality, and at a very competitive price. So much for US car companies interest in competition.
This is what happens when society goes from being a capitalist society to a corporatist society. People are so afraid of leaving a sinking ship that they drown to save a couple jobs that the ship will cut anyway because they are sinking and don't need people to work under water. This is corporatism at its worse. They don't want to change because that would be investing in the future of the company. But that would mean spending money which would hurt potential quarterly profits. It's all about quarterly earnings now...not the long-term health and success of your company. Better to make a crappy product that breaks down and makes tons of money on parts and repairs than to make a quality automobile that makes people happy. Better to stick with ancient technology because to change would mean spending money on R&D that could have went to stockholders.
Maybe it's time to give up. Automakers in the U.S. are apparently greed-blinded idiots. Considering that so many Americans have purchased their products, most of us are enablers of these greed-blinded idiots, and so just as responsible for the problem as they are. Maybe we deserve the economic catastrophe into which we're sliding.
MacDaKnife @ 21:
If you keep up in the new funny pages (Business section) you cannot help but notice that the people now running the big three tend not to have any automaking experience. They come in long enough to get their chunk of change then split. No one gets promoted from below anymore. It's all one big corporate circle jerk.
It might be better to ask oursleves who really is making a profit on a gallon of gas. In New York State the federal tax on a gallon is 42 cents and state tax is 18 cents. But rather than ply those taxes back into rebuilding our roads the money goes into the general fund and pissed away somewhere else just as the great minds in D.C. do when it comes to the money they remove from our payroll checks for social security. It just disappears. As Greenspan said if you want to save S.S. move it out of Washington.
It looks like other countries that are into innovation like Japan will surpass us when it come to increasing fuel efficiency. They have already done it with their water powered car and in India Tata Motors has a car that can run 125 miles on compressed air.
We are losing one of the greatest opportunities to ramp up new manufacturing in our country by throwing cold water on innovation because it might eat into the profits of the oil majors and a government that would be hard pressed to make up the taxes they currently gain on the sale of fuel.
zugzug @ 81:
Peter G....your not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But as the vedio clearly demonstrates, the car runs quite well. You actually sound like your a proponet for either taking no action at all, or just throwing cold water on any innovation at all. Who cares how the Japs did it. The point they did and it works!
It doesn't run on water - it runs on hydrogen.
H2 + 02 ---> 2 H2O
errr.... 2H2 + O2 :)
I really wish Detroit would pull their heads out. I saw a documentary called "Who Killed the Electric Car" It's a great doco and shows how...well, ignorant Detroit is. I believe it was GM, and I bet they are kicking themselves now, because they could have a huge market share to take on Toyota. But they are a bunch of suits, and when's the last time a suit did anything right? The government is also to blame. They need to take charge and build an infrastructure of low or zero emission government vehicles. Then big business fleets, trucking and cabs. If all of those vehicles where the first to change over, then the public could more easily adopt new low emission technology. Just my two cents, but what the hell do I know.
Andrew - the point about the 'water car' is that the ENERGY required to convert the water into usable fuel for the car has to come from somewhere. The water doesn't magically provide this energy therefore there must at be a step in the cycle where outside energy is provided to create the hydrogen fuel (a battery? charged how?). As far as any reliable source has claimed or demonstrated in this world, the process of converting water into H fuel is energy inefficient - ie; you spend more energy splitting the water into H fuel than you get when you use the H fuel. That is why anyone saying 'this car runs on water' sets off everyone's bullshit detector - that would mean that the water somehow provided the energy to split itself into fuel AND make the car 'go' which is saying the process is more than 100% efficient which is widely believed to be impossible.
If someone developed a battery powered reformer that could 'liberate' enough H fuel from a few liters of water to to run a car in ways comparable to a gasoline powered car on a single charge cycle that would be pretty exciting by itself - although it would be a less than 100% efficient process and far less sexy than claiming 'this car runs on water' - at least it wouldn't make everyone suspect you were trying to promote some sort of impossible 'magic' hoax.
People who overreach with their claims do far more to hurt the cause of alternative energy than help it by creating traps for the unwary. People who get burned by hoaxes don't necessarily react by becoming more educated and wise, they can simply become deeply mistrustful of everything they hear - and that hurts people with real innovations to bring to the world when they have to combat unreasonable levels of suspicion.
Octane level
US gasoline is 87 89 92 or thereabouts, European Petrol starts at 92 then 95 98 or so on.
Any car will get better MPG with higher octane fuel.
The US gas companies sells cheap nasty watered down gas to unsuspecting consumers, gas that is more suitable for the low compression ratio, long stroke car engines of 40 years ago.
Hell, Ford already admitted that it's road-hog business model didn't square with reality. Sounds like this warning doesn't either.
Snowball @ 10:
Paying themselves $200,000,000 bonuses for a job well done! This, while getting rid of 3/4 of the workers who obviously were overpaid. Plus all that health insurance and retirement too! Who the hell did they think they were? CEO's? Republican's?
Of course, those 2,000,000 workers use to buy a new car or two every year also, but who needs to worry about dedicated lifelong customers when you can make yourself a billionaire, and run the company into bankruptcy?
Now they are trying to hide behind job losses? What a hoot! They already have eliminated ALL the jobs. And remember, for every Big Three job loss, there was two or three supplier jobs lost! Hard to buy anything on a Wall-Mart salary.
Chris @ 79:
Oh good grief! More of that Ayn Rand free market fairy-tale bullshit! Will you "suckers" ever learn?
Free Market = let the super rich devour everyone else at their leisure! Works great as a soundbite for the trust fund crowd. Everyone else though, is pretty much screwed without regulation from the government.
SUV's! Buy One, Get One Free!
NoGWBpolicyleftinplace @ 104:
plus the only reason SUVs ever happened was b/c of the huge tax break given to them over cars. That is why detroit started building them. If we'd had a free market, we'd never have had SUVs.
Also, the idea that the free market is going to save lives is preposterous. That's one of the funniest things I've ever read.
Lets see, requiring more fuel efficient cars when gas prices are sky high will HURT the auto industry? US sales are down because foreign competitors have plentiful cars which get good gas milage.
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